Hit
by YunCyn
Summary: Those two have got a rather strange kind of relationship... -one shot, het-


Hit

**Disclaimer:** Getbackers (c) Rando-sensei & Yuya-sensei.

**A/N: **Set about five years into the future.

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If there had been anything Midou Ban had learned in his nearly two decades of breathing activity, it was this: 

Being beaten to death could mean that the person currently trying to pummel you into something resembling a substance people scuffed off their shoes hated your very guts **(1)**…

Or it could mean that the person currently trying to pummel you into something resembling a substance people scuffed off their shoes really, really loved you.

Granted, when you were desperately trying to duck blows and jump over swift kicks to particularly sensitive areas, it was hard to tell. But right now, he had suspicions that the current situation he was in pertained to the latter.

Had anyone else been around though, they sure as hell wouldn't have agreed with him.

"Oi, Himiko!"

There came a long string of curses that Ban couldn't help but feel a tinge of pride about. That was Midou Ban and Kudo Yamato's work, that was. Half the words she was throwing at him were things he had come up with. They were however physically impossible unless you had the flexibility of a squid or didn't have a backbone. Or if you were Dr. Jackal on a particularly good day.

"Had a bad day?" He asked with the air of one asking about the condition of the weather as he made a well executed spin through the air and landed several feet away.

Sparkling powder moved faster than a snake's fangs in attack, trying to strike him but always falling one step behind.

"Don't play coy with me, snake!"

Ban's movements were as smooth as water and twice as languid as he dodged, ducked and leaped away from the younger girl's enraged swiping. The air sparkled for a few seconds with her poisons before dissolving away.

"Himiko, I'm the last person on this earth that would be coy. You of all people should know that."

A fierce snarl was all the reply he needed to make him smirk. For some reason, he was in a very good mood today. He hadn't even berated Himiko for her sudden furious, unprovoked attack on his person. There had been no insults, no jabs, just purely cool and utterly calm replies that seemed to fan Lady Poison's fury to the intensity of an incinerator.

"Damn you Midou Ban!"

He flipped once more, this time right over her head. "C'mon, Himiko! There's got to be some reason you're taking all this energy out on me. I was just drinking coffee in the Honky Tonk when you came in all Godzilla-like! Master's gonna cut me off for sure after what you did to his store before I ran out here! What the hell happened today?"

"Bloody stay still so I can turn you into a stinking baboon!"

That clinches it, thought Ban as he rolled to the side, neatly avoiding a kick. She must have been really stressed out to issue such a stupid command. What was the point in staying still if it meant he was going to turn into Fuyuki Shido?

(Somewhere else in Shinjuku, a certain Beastmaster sneezed.)

Ban watched the expression of pure, unadulterated expression of incense on her face while he took a few minutes to catch his breath on a convenient ledge. He wondered briefly if this was what Kagami felt like all of the time, forever floating about four feet above your opponents, slowly driving them into blinding anger with polite yet totally infuriating calmness.

…Kagami was a freak to do this 24/7, decided Ban as Himiko caught up with him.

"Himiko, this is just out of pure curiousity so let me just ask you this."

He leapt from the ledge before Himiko could waft a poison beneath his nose. Landing on the one she had been standing on, he caught her tanned wrist. With the other hand moving faster than Himiko could react, he grabbed the poison vials from her fingers and tossed them to the ground below. Glass tinkled against cement as they hit the floor and rolled away into the dust.

Ban pushed his glasses a little further down his nose so his blue eyes shone above the purple glass. Then, he grabbed Himiko's other hand and effectively pinned her against a wall, his hands firmly gripping her wrists so there was no way she could escape the smoldering glare he was giving her.

"What the hell did I do to you today?"

Himiko met his glare head on, putting every fiber of hatred, loathe and disgust in her into it. "Not just today. Every single day of my life since I met you again five years ago! Damn you!"

"What the hell- Himiko, you haven't been sniffing the wrong poisons again, have you? Or glue?"

"NO!" Her struggling was futile against his strong grip. But it didn't mean she wasn't going to bloody well try and kick his good for nothing behind. "You prideful, filthy, loathsome- GAH! I can't even insult you properly!"

Ban tried not to pay any attention to the twinges of a strange ache somewhere in the left side of his chest. "You've never been able to insult me from day one, flat chest."

"Grrr-! I'm gonna-" Her attempt to knee him where the sun don't shine on fell flat on its face as he side stepped her moving leg while _still_ pinning her wrists against the wall. "SEE! There you go again!"

"What! Avoid your kick so I can procreate for another few more decades of my life?"

"Avoid me period! You never let me hit you! I could never hit you!"

Confusion rammed into Ban's cranium like a bug on full speed would hit the windscreen of a car on the highway. "What are you TALKING about, you nutcase? Of course I won't let you hit me! You know HOW many times I've been in pain all because of your stupid perfumes?"

"Not that! When it really counts!" Himiko glared at him again. "When it really hurt, you let me hit you! Don't you remember! When _aniki _was still alive!"

Ban stared at her. That was what this whole business had been about? His old, childish way of comforting her whenever she and Yamato fought? "That was… AGES ago, Himiko. What the hell are you bringing that up for?"

"Because it actually made me FEEL BETTER, you idiot!"

Ban stared at her harder and with wider eyes. "…what-"

Himiko had stopped struggling, looking away. "Every time… every time I and _aniki _argued… you'd let me hit you. At least one soft punch. It made me feel better. Then when you… after you ran away…"

She glared at a point on the ground, her gaze turning hard. "After that, I could never hit you. Never. Not even after I found you… not even after my seventeenth birthday… I could never hit you."

There was some silence as Himiko pointedly looked at anything else but the man holding her against the wall and Ban's brain digested this new piece of information.

Then with a sigh, he let go of her hands and jumped from the ledge. Jolted out of her thoughts, Himiko rubbed her wrists and looked at him waiting on the ground.

"Come down first, you dumbass."

Scowling, Himiko leapt off the ledge. "Quit insulting me, you-"

Ban cut her off by gesturing his shoulder towards her. "One punch. But that's it."

She stared at his shoulder then at him. "What?"

He scowled, good mood evaporated about five minutes ago. "Stupid, you said hitting me made you feel better. So hit already so I can go get some coffee and forget this whole thing ever happened."

Himiko blinked a few times before hesitantly raising her hand. "…you mean it?"

He growled. "BEFORE I turn a hundred and twenty, Lady Poison, yes, I mean it. Hurry up already!"

That prompted her to put a bit more effort into the punch as she whirled her fist into his bony shoulder. There was a lack of wincing or twitching from his part, obviously a sign that Himiko's punch must have been little more painful than a butterfly settling on his shoulder.

But it didn't really matter. Now Himiko felt lighter, the kind of feeling that arises after one's stress has drained out.

Ban glanced at her face and grumbled. "Why didn't you just tell me anyway?"

She shrugged, bad mood dissipating. "I guess… I thought I could handle it. I'm twenty one after all. Besides…" she gave him a look. "I managed for quite a while you were gone."

"…_baka_."

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Ban turned his back to her, looking up at the sky.

"Being twenty one doesn't make you invincible. And I'm here now. Next time, just say something,"

He glanced lazily back at her.

"And I'll let you hit me."

Himiko had to smile, if only a little. "…I'll remember that."

He nodded then began to walk back to the Honky Tonk. "You owe me a cup of coffee by the way."

"What?"

"Payment for the punch."

Ban barely heard the string of curses resounding from behind him as he strolled, her words in his mind.

_I could never hit you._

He smirked.

Himiko never knew that she had hit him where it really mattered a _long_ time ago. She'd hit him in the heart with a punch much harder than any other blow he'd received in his entire life.

_You have no idea how many times I'd let you hit me, Himiko_, thought Ban at the back of his mind.

_Just as long as you feel better afterwards… I'd let you hit me a million times and more._

The smirk grew a little wider before disappearing two minutes later as Himiko caught up with him. The two strolled and argued on back to the coffee shop, underneath the blue sky of afternoon.

-

**The End.

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**

**(1)** Although what a person's pancreas, intestines, and gall bladder could do to a person was a complete mystery. Besides cause a bloody mess when thrown into one's face anyway.

**A/N: **Uh... no clue about this one. I think Himiko just had a hard day earlier. (sweat drop) One of the weirder, spur-of-the-moment drabbles, this was. I'd appreciate any tips on how to improve, what you liked, what you didn't... that sorta thing. Thanks for reading!


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